Our Great Rest

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Transcript:

Have you ever needed a rest? Have you ever been so tired that all you could think about was resting? Sometimes when Charlo will tell me that supper’s ready, I’ll come in for working outside, and I’ll tell her I’m just too tired to eat.

Now, eventually I get over that feeling, as you can probably tell. But at that moment, all I really want out of life is just to sit down and rest. We all have moments like that because God designed us to rest. You know, we do stuff, we get tired, and then we rest. That’s how we recharge our batteries. But, you know, you and I are not only built for physical rest. We don’t just need physical rest. We need spiritual rest as well.

Picture a world. I want you to picture a world where you live in constant fear that the slightest misstep is going to lead you into everlasting condemnation. A world where there are stringent rules regarding every aspect, governing every aspect of your life.

From meals, to hygiene, to growing food, to conducting business, to relationships, to worship, to everything. A world where you strive to do your best in all of these areas, but you can never be sure whether God is going to ever accept you or not. That would be exhausting, wouldn’t it?

And that was the world of the old covenant that we’ve been looking at. The old covenant was there to show us how sinful we are so that we’d see our need for Christ when the time came for the new covenant. But so many people today think that they’re going to earn God’s acceptance through their efforts that they unwittingly go and put themselves back in that old covenant all over again.

They put themselves back in that exhausting world. And maybe you’ve been wearing yourself out trying to earn God’s acceptance when what God really calls you to do is to rest in Him. Today we’re returning to the book of Hebrews after our little detour to learn about the rest that God calls us into and how we get there through Jesus Christ. And I’ll be honest with you.

I try always to be honest with you, but in this case I’ll really be honest with you. This was not an easy passage for me to sift through. And this is one of the hardest passages of the New Testament that I’ve ever tried to decipher and teach on.

And I’ve struggled to decipher it over the last week. And I still have some unanswered questions about some things in the passage. But from what I have learned, this passage has a lot to tell us about finding our rest in God.

So if you haven’t already done so, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 4. And we’ll look at verses 1 through 11 this morning. Now it says, For he spake in a certain place on the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works, and in this place again if they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.

Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, today, after so long a time, as it is said today, if you will hear his voice, pardon not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would not he afterward have spoken of another day? There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

For he that has entered into his, excuse me, for he that has entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Now, at the end of chapter 3, in verses that we didn’t study in this series, the writer of Hebrews recalled how God intended to bring the Israelites into the promised land.

That was God’s intent. But they refused to trust God, didn’t they? They refused to trust God, so instead of entering into his rest in the promised land, they were left to wander in the wilderness for a generation because of their unbelief.

And looking back at their example, the writer said that we should fear. He told us to fear. Now, take a look at verse 1.

It says, Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Now, this fear doesn’t mean that God wants you and me to live our lives overwhelmed by some kind of mortal terror. A better explanation of this is what the theologian John Gill wrote when he called it a cautious fear or a careful circumspection.

In other words, we’re called to think seriously about God’s promises. We’re called to take it seriously. There’s a promise made here that those who come to the Father through Jesus Christ will enter into his rest. Yet there’s the warning that some in the audience would fall short of actually receiving this promise.

Now this warning doesn’t mean that we have to earn God’s promise or that we might fall short simply by not doing enough. If you’ve been with us for very many weeks of this study, you’ll remember that Hebrews was written to a group of Jewish people who were largely on the fence about Jesus. In that group, there were people who had professed faith in Jesus, but they were flirting with the idea of returning to the Old Covenant, meaning that their faith may never have been real at all.

And others in this group were intellectually convinced about Jesus without ever having been spiritually converted. And so there were a lot of people who had the appearance of faith without actually putting their trust completely in Jesus Christ. They had the appearance of faith. And this is not peculiar to their time.

It’s not unique to their time. A person can go to church. A person can go to church for decades and participate in the pretense of Christianity for decades and still never have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that’s why the writer gave us this warning.

It’s not enough simply to sit there and be part of the group and hear what God says. If we don’t believe God, and I’m not saying believe in God, lots of people believe in God without believing God. There’s a difference.

If we don’t believe God, meaning we don’t take him at his word and trust what he says, if we don’t believe God, we will never enter into his rest. That’s the warning for us. And he continued discussing the role of faith in verse 2. It says, For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

Now the people who initially received the book of Hebrews, they’d heard the gospel, And the word gospel means good news. So they had heard good news. They had heard the good news of the new covenant, that Jesus Christ died to pay for our sins in full.

Well, the Israelites of the old covenant had also heard good news from God. Part of that good news was that God promised to be their God and love them and protect them, all of those things, if they would be his people and love him and follow him. God promised to send them a Messiah to deal with the problem of sin, a Messiah who incidentally became the focus of the good news in the new covenant.

And God promised to bring them into a land of their own, a land that was a wonderful land that was flowing with milk and honey. He promised all those things here. That was part of their good news.

So everyone concerned here in the old covenant and in the new, they had all heard good news from God. But there was a problem. The good news doesn’t change anything for you.

It doesn’t change anything for your life unless you believe it. Verse 2 says that the good news did not profit them. Why not?

Because they didn’t believe it. Because it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it. They didn’t believe it.

The Israelites of the old covenant repeatedly walked away from God, and they repeatedly walked away from his promises simply because they did not believe him. And that’s what it boils down to. They might have believed in him, but they didn’t believe him.

In the case that the writer described in chapter 3, an entire generation of people missed out on the promised land simply because they did not believe what God said. Just to deviate from my notes a little bit and explain that, if you don’t remember the story, God had already promised them this land, and he sent them there and said, send 12 spies into the land and check it out. He never said, report back on whether or not you think you can take it.

God had already promised them that land, so it was a foregone conclusion that it was going to be theirs. He just said, go in and check it out. Go on a reconnaissance mission.

Report back on how amazing the land is. They came back and 10 of the spies said, no, we’re terrified of the people that lived there. Two of the spies said, with God, of course we can take it.

The people of Israel went with the 10 and they chose not to believe. Now another generation of people was about to forfeit, was about to forfeit the blessings of God. They were about to skip out on all the promises that God had made in the gospel simply because they refused to take God at his word.

These people in the new covenant were about to make the same horrible mistake. Now let’s take a look at verse 3. It says, For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath that they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

So the writer of Hebrews explained to them that there was no reason for them to doubt God’s word about this. Because God’s promises were already being fulfilled before their very eyes. When he wrote, for we which have believed do enter into rest, that meant that believers were already entering into the rest of God.

They were already entering in. The writer of Hebrews and those around him who had truly put their trust in Jesus Christ were already beginning to experience what it meant to rest in him, that sense of peace that comes when we lay down our burdens and instead put on the yoke that he gives us, that light yoke that he talked about in Matthew. Now, the next part of the verse is a little bit tricky.

It says, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest. Folks, I spent nearly a whole afternoon wrestling with that statement, trying to figure out what it meant. I had to look at a few different English and Greek versions to do so. The writer of Hebrews was quoting Psalm 95.

11 here, which says, I swear, being the past tense of, well, we would say swore now, but in older English they say swear. I swear in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest. Now that verse is quoted in Hebrews 3. 11 and 3.

18. It’s quoted here in Hebrews 4. 3, and it’s quoted later in verse 5, Hebrews 4.

5. All of the Greek texts there are basically identical. But in English, three of the verses in the King James say they shall, if they, I’m sorry, three of the verses, I’m a little tongue-tied this morning. In the King James, three of the verses say they shall not, while two of them are translated if they shall.

And I don’t fully, I still don’t fully understand the reason for the word differences, for the different word choices. But I finally realized that all five verses are saying the same thing. God swore that the unbelieving of Israel would not get the chance to enter into the promised land.

And so then it all ties, it ties all of this back to the work of God, which was finished. It says finished from the foundation of the world. It’s talking about God’s work in creation.

Here’s verse 4. It says, for he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works. This refers us back to Genesis 2.

2. God spent six days creating the universe, and then he rested on the seventh day. Now, God did not need six days to create the universe.

He could have done it instantly. And God didn’t need to rest on the seventh day. I mean, God’s strength is infinite.

God’s strength is never diminished, no matter how hard he works. All of this was done to set a pattern for us in the way we were supposed to live, because God calls us to rest both physically and spiritually. And then we see this again in verse 5.

It says again, in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest. Just like in verse 3, it means they shall not. It’s telling us that in the old covenant, God swore that Israel would not enter into his rest because of their unbelief. So when you see if they shall, here in this passage, it means they shall not.

We have to take these three verses together, verses 3, 4, and 5, to really get a better idea of what they’re saying. God rested simply as an example for us, simply to set an example for us. And then he called man into his rest. And he promises to bring us into that rest. Now, if we refuse to believe him, he promises that we will not enter into that rest. If we do believe him, he promises to bring us into that rest. Then verse 6 indicates that he’s still offering this rest to us.

It says, There is still the opportunity for people to enter into the Lord’s rest. The writer said, It remaineth. Present tense. It remaineth for people to enter in.

The rest he offers in the new covenant is not exactly the same as the rest that he offered in the old covenant. The previous rest was a physical rest, which might be nice, but it’s not all there is. It’s a physical rest, and it’s only a temporary rest. In the new covenant, the rest that God offers is a spiritual rest, and it’s an eternal rest. But if we want to enter into the rest that he offers, we still, one thing has not changed.

We still have to enter in by faith. It says there’s still an opportunity to enter into this rest, but in the same verse here, it cautions us to understand that this whole generation of Israelites missed their rest in the promised land because of unbelief. As Hebrews 11, 6 says, that without faith, it is impossible to please him.

For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So we must come to God believing that he is who he says he is, and come with the confidence that he will fulfill the promises that he’s made and bring us into his you’ve got to come to God with that kind of faith now take a look at verse 7 it says again he limiteth a certain day saying in David today after so long a time as it is said today if you will hear his voice pardon not your hearts that word limit that word limit means that God has appointed a time for us to enter into his rest God appoints a time to offer salvation and gives us the opportunity to receive it. He offers his rest to us now.

He’s offering it to us even today, but there will come a day for each of us when all of our opportunities have passed. Now, I don’t know when that moment is. I’ve heard some preachers say, you only get so many chances.

I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know there’s a day when death comes knocking at our door and there is no further opportunity. I don’t know that it’s true that you could live 20 years and God may never give you another opportunity because you passed on it. I don’t know that to be true, but whether it’s today and you’ve got 20 years left, whether it’s when death comes for you, there is a time when all of our opportunities have passed.

It’s just like Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6, 2, when he said, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Why would you put it off when God’s given you the opportunity today?

Now, this verse, this verse, verse 7, quotes the same chapter of Psalms that we’ve already looked at. Psalm 95, 7 through 8. It says the same thing as this verse.

Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart. So the writer here was begging his readers not to follow the example of the faithless Israelites. God has made this incredibly gracious offer to bring us into his spiritual rest, but there will come a day for each of us when the opportunity to receive that rest has passed.

And in light of this, the writer issued a challenge here, not to waste our time by hardening our hearts. You see, again, the Israelites who left Egypt to go to the promised land, they started doubting God’s promises almost from the very first time they got into a sticky situation on the banks of the Red Sea. And God saved them from Pharaoh’s army by parting the water so that they could pass on dry land, but they never seemed to let go of that unbelief.

And as time went on, they kind of dug in their heels and they became solidified in this position where they constantly doubted God. And their hearts over time grew less and less receptive to God. And when the time came for them to enter into the promised land, as I said, they sent the spies out.

They practically staged a riot because they were so convinced that God was just leading them to their deaths. That’s not faith. That’s the complete opposite.

And because their hearts over time became hardened in this unbelief, they missed out. And I want to throw something else in here for just a minute. After studying that, I grew up thinking all of this happened over years and years.

I thought the sending of the spies out to check out Canaan came years and years, maybe decades after the crossing of the Red Sea, after God had led them out of Egypt. In the last few years, as I’ve been studying the chronology of this, it was about a year, maybe less, maybe a little more, but it was somewhere around a year. that’s how quickly we can become hardened in this unbelief yeah God led them out of Egypt but God what have you done for me lately they very quickly became hardened in unbelief and because they did they missed out and that’s the warning that’s the warning throughout this whole passage the longer we persist in unbelief the more determined we become to stay there the longer we persist in unbelief the more determined we become to stay there the longer we reject God’s promises the easier it becomes to reject him in the future.

This verse is imploring us to respond to God and receive his promises now rather than put him off and see our hearts continue to harden and unbelief. Now let’s look at verse 8 where it compares the rest that God offers in the old covenant to the rest that he offers in the new. It says, For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterwards have spoken of another day.

Now this verse is also a little confusing until we realize that in Hebrew and Greek the names Jesus and Joshua are the same name. For both, the Hebrew is Yeshua and the Greek is Yesus. They’re exactly the same.

And in context, this is talking about Joshua, who was the successor to Moses, not Jesus Christ. When the Israelites finally reached the promised land, Joshua was the one who led them into that earthly rest. And even though God called Joshua, even though God chose Joshua and used him to bring his people into his rest in the promised land. It was only a physical rest, as I’ve already said, and it was only a temporary rest. Their struggles were far from being over, and if you read much of the Old Testament, you know that’s true. And then it says, then would he not have afterward spoken of another day?

So if they had found a true and lasting rest in Joshua’s day, God wouldn’t have promised, God wouldn’t have continued to promise something better, that there was something greater in store for God’s people than an earthly promised land or a temporary Sabbath. There was something greater. Verse 9 says, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

There’s an even greater place of rest for the people of God than anyone in the old covenant could ever have imagined. In the new covenant, our rest is not from physical labor. We still have to do that.

Sorry to break it to you. It’s not, but it’s also not a rest that lasts for just a short time each week and then we have to go back to our work. It’s not a piece of land that we have to fight to defend.

Our rest in the new covenant is Jesus Christ. He brings us a spiritual rest and he brings us a rest that no one can ever take away. Imagine what that prospect meant for these people who spent their entire lives working, toiling, struggling, trying to do everything right so that maybe, just maybe, God might accept it, that he might look favorably on them. They were faced with the impossible task of living up to God’s perfect standard, the demands of the law, sinless perfection.

They carried this enormous burden with no assurance that they could ever be good enough. To these people, God announced that a rest was coming. Some of you may have felt that same burden.

You know, that overwhelming sense of alienation that comes from knowing that you’re not good enough for God. Maybe you’ve tried, maybe you’ve worked hard, struggled to live right, you’ve done everything that you know to do, and yet you still feel like God is distant. Maybe you’ve tried so hard that you’re exhausted from all the effort, and yet you still have no assurance that God will ever accept you.

There’s a place of rest that remains for you in verse 9, Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. He invites us to come and find rest from our labor and from our struggle in him. He invites us to trade in our heavy burdens for his light yoke.

This rest that he offers to us changes everything. Verse 10 says this, For he that has entered into his rest, he hath also ceased from his own works as God did from his. Just as God completed the work of creation in six days and rested from all of his work on the seven, when we enter into the rest that he gives, we cease from all our work.

Again, not our physical work. Don’t forget, this is talking about a spiritual rest under a new covenant. It doesn’t mean we’re supposed to sit around like sloths waiting for Jesus to come back.

There are entire books of the New Testament about that. He gives us rest from our spiritual labors. But even spiritually, that doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to become lazy and undisciplined.

What that means is that we are no longer under the obligation to keep the letter of the law in order to try in vain to somehow earn God’s approval through our good works. Because it didn’t work that way. We can rest from that kind of work because Jesus has already done all of the work that is necessary for your salvation.

He’s already done all the work that was necessary for God to accept you. And he accomplished what we never could. Now, as far as earning our way into God’s acceptance, there’s no longer anything for us to do.

Jesus did it all. He did it all. And because he did it all, he calls us now to rest in him.

And then in verse 11, the passage here ends with a challenge. It says, let us therefore labor. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

Now, it says we’re supposed to labor to enter into the rest that Jesus Christ provides, that God provides in Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean that we have to go out and work to earn it, that word labor. That would be a pretty blatant contradiction to what he just said in verse 10. That word labor means something more than work.

In Jung’s literal translation of the Bible, which is a good version for studying, not so great for reading or preaching from because it’s translated word for word from the Greek, So everything sounds kind of disjointed like Yoda, like the Yoda translation in the Bible. It says, it translates that phrase, let us labor, as may we be diligent. May we be diligent.

I think that’s a good way of saying it. The Greek word spudasamon that we see as let us labor means something like let’s be quick. I think that’s a good way of saying it too.

This verse is telling us to pay attention to the whole issue of God’s rest and take it seriously and to make up our minds. Not telling you you have to go out and work for it. It’s saying take it seriously, do it quickly, make up your minds, pick a side.

This is a serious issue. It’s a serious issue for us because we don’t want to end up like the generation of Israelites who were excluded from the promised land due to unbelief. Unless we trust God to keep his promises, we will not enter into his rest. This morning, there’s a rest that God invites us to.

It’s not a physical promised land. It’s not a temporary Sabbath. God invites us to a spiritual rest and a permanent rest in Jesus Christ. If you are plagued by the sense that no matter what you do, that you’ll never be good enough.

Which, by the way, is the truth. If you’re plagued by that, though, God invites you to come and rest in Him. The truth is that none of us will ever be good enough to live up to God’s standards.

That’s why He calls us to come and rest in Him through Jesus Christ. You and I are separated from God by our sin. Every act of disobedience that we’ve ever committed stands between us and God like an impenetrable barrier, a barrier that we can never cross. And no matter what good works we may perform, no matter how well we may try to live our lives, no matter how much we try to do to make ourselves acceptable to God, nothing that we can ever do will ever make even the slightest dent in that barrier.

We are absolutely separated from the Holy God. And we are resigned to a life of spiritual wandering and turmoil, terminated by death and separation from God and him. And yet God loved us enough that he sent his only begotten son to die on the cross so that he could pay for our sins in full, rise from the dead, and break down that barrier once and for all.

You could never be good enough for God no matter how hard you work. I could never be good enough for God no matter how hard I work. So Jesus came to give us his righteousness.

He died so that he could declare you good enough through his work on the cross. Now because of what Jesus did, God invites you into his rest. He calls you to put aside your futile efforts to try to earn his acceptance. He calls you to walk away from this life of spiritual wandering and toil.

And he calls you to leave behind the insecurity and the uncertainty of trying in vain to forge your own path to eternal life. Instead, he calls you to come to him through Jesus Christ and rest in him. Jesus has already done all the work so that you can be forgiven.

So that you can have eternal life. So that you can have a relationship with the Father. And so that you can rest in him.

All that’s left for you now to do is believe. It doesn’t mean an intellectual belief where we just agree to a series of statements. That means, again, the firm conviction that what God says is true and the willingness to trust him in such a way that when it comes to eternity, when it comes to your salvation, you put all your eggs in his basket, that you trust him completely and unreservedly to bring you into the rest that he promises.

Because of what Jesus did, all that’s necessary for you to enter into the rest of God, all that’s necessary for you to have this peace with God that comes from a relationship with Him is for you to have faith. Just like Israel in the Old Covenant, unless we believe, we will never enter into His rest.

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